8. Rembrandt’s Pupils in Rome

Pieter van Laer’s genius has taken us away from Rome, out of the 17th century and into the regions of Northern Italy, which were to be explored at a later stage. Returning to the question of Rembrandt’s influence in Italy, which Wichmann raised with regard to Bramer/Salvator Rosa, we come across a rare artist by whom there is hitherto only one autograph painting: the portrait of a man in Palazzo Corsini. It reflects the Rembrandt style of the 1640s in the manner of Nicolaes Maes and is inscribed: Moreelse fc Ano 1648. This (self-)portrait of the young Moreelse is probably the work of a ’Signor Benjamin Morellesen, figlio del quondam Paulo Fiamingo’, who died in Rome in 1649 at the age of twenty-one [i].²¹⁶

The historical evidence on the trips to Rome made by other Rembrandt pupils is very sparse. Samuel van Hoogstraten (1626/7-1678) made his way from Vienna to Rome for a brief visit in 1652. He will hardly have exercised any great influence in so short a time.²¹⁷ We learn from Houbraken that a painter from Leiden by the name of Drost lived for quite some time in Rome, where he associated with Johann Carl Loth (!) and Johannes van der Meer (1630-1695) [i]. Could he have meant Rembrandt’s pupil, Willem Drost (1633-1659) [i]?²¹⁸ It is to this Drost, whose paintings in the Rembrandt style are familiar to us from the Louvre and the Bredius Collection, that the genre and historical paintings executed in the southern tenebrist fashion and now in the Dresden and Innsbruck galleries have recently been re-attributed [i][i].²¹⁹ The poem by Cornelis van Ryssen about the ‘Bent’ painters, which was published by Houbraken, mentions a certain Gladbeck.²²⁰ Again the question arises as to whether this might not be Rembrandt’s pupil, Jan van Glabbeeck (1634/5-1686/7). The scanty evidence nips in the bud any illusions about the influence Rembrandt’s style might have had in Rome.

In 1686 Filippo Baldinucci, who was the first to mention Rembrandt’s works in Italy, was aware of only two paintings by the artist in the country. One of them was in the possession of Prince Pamphili, the existence of which can now no longer be proven, and the other was in Florence [i].²²¹ While we know that other Rembrandt paintings were in Naples and Florence during Baldinucci’s lifetime, virtually no works by the artist were known in Rome.²²² Baldinucci wrote extensively about Rembrandt (and about his pupil, Govert Flinck).²²³ His remarks have a certain value as source material, for he derived his knowledge from Eberhard Keil, whose work we have just examined, albeit without discovering anything of what he learned from his former teacher in Holland. The only conclusion we can draw, therefore, is that Rembrandt’s painting style was virtually unknown in 17th century Rome.

Naturally, his etchings were widely known and Baldinucci was by no means alone in admiring their ‘gusto pittoresco fino all’ultimo segno’ [style, which was painterly down to the last detail].²²⁴ The inventory of the estate of Cornelis de Wael (died 1667 in Rome), which has already been mentioned on several occasions, affords us a glimpse of a chamber of art treasures comprising more than 70 etchings by Rembrandt together with etchings by other Northern Europeans such as Lucas van Leyden as well as after Rubens, van Dijck and Callot.²²⁵ The influence of Rembrandt on Italian etchers can only mentioned here in passing. Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) must have been an important mediator [i]. He first connected with Jacques Callot during when he was in Florence. During his stay in Paris in 1642, however, he acquired etchings by Rembrandt from François Langlois. Five years later Della Bella was in Amsterdam, where he studied Dutch art at its source [i][i]. In 1651-1654 he worked in Rome.²²⁶